The Gunslinger
In September 2009, Ted Dekker wrote a short story (which he called "flash fiction") called The Gunslinger. In 2010, he wrote a series of short stories based on this story that he posted on Facebook. Each story ended with a multiple choice question in which his Facebook fans could determine the direction of the story. Though Ted did not know at the beginning how the it would end, the series tied into Showdown in the finale. It adds no story content to the novel, but it is an interesting look into the mind of one of the characters. ''The Gunslinger'' Episode One He called me to the floor and asked me why I was in the building. After all, it had been six years since I'd last drawn my weapon to defend the town. "The bar down the street is mine," says me. "I've come to claim it." "Go back to the big city and run with your own folk,” Says him. “We don't need no trouble and certainly no gunslinger." "Soon as I take what is mine." I eyed that vulture and dropped my forehead so that he could scarcely see the red flare in my eyes. "Or would you rather take it from me with force?" The man’s hand flashed, quicker than I could have imagined from such an old geezer . . . END FLASH. Episode Two I could have drawn and killed that poor fellow before his shooter cleared leather but I wanted no more blood on my hands. I saw it all in slow motion: the gun bucking in his fist, the barrel spitting fire, the silver bullet spinning toward me. I ducked to my right and let the projectile snap past my ear. A blond woman with the face of the sun watched with wide blue eyes three long paces there; I was behind her in the space it took for the old geezer to adjust his aim for a second shot. "No more blood," says me, grabbing the woman around the waist. She did not cry out, did not even breathe. The old geezer held his aim. "Let her go," says him. "I will," says me, "as soon as I take what's mine." I backed out of that place, threw the woman on my horse and leapt up in front of her, holding one of her arms tight around my belly. The horse thundered down the way, leaving the rest in our dust. A loud click sounded in my ear; cold gun-metal pressed against my neck. "Stop this horse," says the woman behind me, "or I'll put some lead in your head." My heart stopped in my throat. I was quick but was I that quick? END FLASH. Episode Three "Stop this stallion now, Gunslinger," says she, "or I swear by all that is human, you are as dead as a cold blue moon." Her voice was like steel and it rode my nerves in the way only one other woman's voice ever had. I'd loved that woman and married her before the law had hung her from a tree behind my saloon six years ago. I rode like a man dead already, frozen more by her breath in my ear than the steel against my neck. The pounding of my stallion's hoofs matched that of my heart. "Now you're really getting under my skin," says she. "By three if you value your life." Her fingers slowly slid up my chest and wrapped around my throat. She pressed in close. I did not move; I could not move. "One." Her lips were against my ear. "Two." Her words were a drug to my mind. "Three." I was dead in her arms. "Now you die, Gunslinger," says she, and she pulled the trigger. END FLASH. Episode Four "Now you die, Gunslinger," says she, and she pulled the trigger. I heard the pistol's hammer-fall as clearly as I could hear the old geezer chuckling far behind us. I could have moved then, while I was still alive, perhaps avoid the bullet altogether. I could have killed her. But the fact that she had the stomach to pull that trigger while pressed so close to me, fingers wrapped around the very neck she sought to sever, shook me to my bones. "Lucine." I uttered the name that had once claimed my heart. Her answer was the click of that firing pin as it struck the shell, sending a bullet down the barrel toward my neck with a crash of thunder. My heart was ravaged before her bullet drilled into my flesh, ripping muscles and severing arteries. She had all of my love then, before she blew a hole in my neck. Pain bit deep, razored jaws mocking my strength. It was only a small slug but it might have been God’s boulder hurled from heaven, because it knocked me clean off my horse. I spun through the air, bounced off the ground like a rag doll, and rolled down into a ravine that gurgled with a small creek. Face down, draped over a large rock. Blood drained from my neck and turned the water red. END FLASH. Episode Five I was alive. But life was leaving my body faster than I could make new blood. And I couldn't seem to move, the bullet must have severed my spine. It had blown a hole into my neck but I couldn’t remember an exit wound. For the first time that day I felt the whispers of true panic. I was going to die? Stones rattled down the incline. Boots crunched in approach. She was coming to help me? Or finish me. "I'm sorry, gunslinger," says she, "but I gave you a chance to live. Death is the best thing for you now." Even then her voice was a soft, rhythmical siren that pulled at my spine, daring me to live if only to know her, to stare into her eyes, to be known by her. The heel of her boot rested on my side. She gave a mighty kick and sent me toppling off the rock into a deep eddy. Water filled my ears. But the cold was enough to bring a sliver of life to my core as I sank to the bottom of that pool. Enough for me to feel the slug buried in my throat, work it slowly into my esophagus, sealing my internal wounds to stop the bleeding. Then up my throat, into my mouth, metallic. I held the bullet in my cheek. My eyes fluttered open. Life flooded my body. I cocked my legs underneath me, shot to the surface, and landed on the shore, water streaming from my body. The bright sunlight in my eyes, I expected. The heel of that woman's boot against the side of my head I did not. "The last time you hung me!" says she. Lucine? But that was impossible! "Today it’s your turn to die." END FLASH. Episode Six "The last time you hung me!" says she. Lucine? But that was impossible! "Today it's your turn to die." I dropped to all fours under the weight of her blow. What was she saying? How could I have killed her? Her boot struck my gut and I fell flat. "I'm on your side!" says she. "If you kill me, you'll only come back to this hell another day. The only way out is for you to die here. I tried to tell you that last time. And you hung me from the tree." I pushed myself to my knees. Laughter snickered through the valley and I squinted up to see the old geezer and his folk staring down with me. Their eyes were red and their faces were twisted. Some held rusted blades, some gripped long wooden stakes. "This town is ours," cries that old geezer, and I knew then that he was the devil. When I lowered my eyes to Lucine, once hung by me but alive again here before my eyes, I saw that tears trailed down her cheek. The barrel of her pistol was a tunnel of death, aimed at my forehead. "They own you, Gunslinger," she whispers. "I've already paid the debt on that deed once. The only way out of here now is to die yourself now. If you kill me again you're trapped here." "I have to die?" says me. "You already tried to kill me." "Don't resist it this time," says she. "It will be okay, I promise. I'm the only one here who can help you. One of us must die, do you understand? I’ve already died once, now it's your turn." It all came to me in a flash. I was in that forever place, the town of my own soul. The old geezer and his fold were marching down the hill, like vampires to feed on my heart. I stood. "Then kill me." Tears pooled in her eyes. "I love you, Gunslinger," says she. And she pulled the trigger for the second time that day and shot me in the head. This time I did not use my power to save my miserable old self. By the count of three . . . . . . I was dead. "Johnny?" Johnny snapped his eyes wide and stared up at the black boiling clouds. He was in Paradise, the storm was gathering itself. He'd fallen asleep in the back yard? "Johnny, you out there?" He'd dreamed of an old Geezer. But that old geezer was real wasn't he? And the town was too. This town, his town, Paradise, which was being torn apart by a much younger old geezer of an even more wicked kind. Marsuvees Black. It was almost as if someone had written that story into his mind, that's how real it felt. The back door swung open. "Johnny?" "Coming, Mother." He pushed himself up and headed for the house. Somehow he knew, this was all just getting started. The worst of it was still to come. The worst by far. THE END. Symbolism The gunslinger character represents an ordinary human being, and his lover, Lucine, represents Christ. The old geezer, the antagonist, represents both Satan and Marsuvees Black. See also *List of characters in The Gunslinger External Links *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=131971194854 The Original Gunslinger Story] *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=392838014854 The Gunslinger Episode One] *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=393538539854 The Gunslinger Episode Two] *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=393856754854 The Gunslinger Episode Three] *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=394216109854 The Gunslinger Episode Four] *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=394570554854 The Gunslinger Episode Five] *[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=395296074854 The Gunslinger Episode Six] Category:Paradise Trilogy Category:Flash Fiction